Recap / The Simpsons S 8 E 10 The Springfield Files

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In this tale narrated by Leonard Nimoy, Homer sees an alien in the woods, and while everyone else writes it off as yet another drunken hallucination (since Homer tested "Boris Yeltsin" drunk on Moe's Breathalyzer), Agents Mulder and Scully from The X Files come to Springfield to help Homer solve the case.

This is the first of four episodes produced by Al Jean and Mike Reiss instead of the current showrunner (in this case, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein). Jean would return as showrunner starting in season 13.

This episode contains examples of:

Big "NO!": Homer shouts it when he hears Bart's ghost story about college costs for Maggie.

Biting-the-Hand Humor: When Bart asks what Homer will do if they can't get proof of the alien's existence, Homer says they'll make up something and sell it to FOX Network. The two laugh at how they buy anything.

Blatant Lies: Homer tries to pull this trope to make his actions the night he saw the 'alien' sound better. Scully quickly calls him on it.

Mulder: All right, Homer. We want you to re-create your every move the night you saw this alien.

Homer: Well, the evening began at the gentleman's club, where we were discussing Wittgenstein over a game of backgammon.

Scully: Mr. Simpson, it's a felony to lie to the F.B.I.

Homer: We were sitting in Barney's car eating packets of mustard. You happy?

By "No", I Mean "Yes": Leonard Nimoy begins with, "The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is no."

Call Back: Once again, Moe abandons a criminal scheme because he mistakenly thinks people are onto him.

Character Filibuster: Parodied, as Mulder gives a long rant about "the truth". He started during daylight hours, but it's night by the time he's finished. And Scully left as he was getting started.

According to the DVD commentary, they just left the microphone on and let Duchovny ramble about whatever he wanted. He went on for two hours before he ran out of steam.

Comically Missing the Point: Homer, not long after being told by the guy selling shirts that the "Homer is a Dope" ones are already sold out, orders two of them.

Couldn't Find a Pen: A non-bloody example, Homer runs away from the alien screaming "Yahhh!" As we watch from above we see him run through a field spelling out the word "Yahhh!" in cursive (including the exclamation mark, which he dots!) See it here.

Crop Circles: Homer runs through a field of crop, screaming "Yahhh!" and creating the pattern Yahhh!, in crop circle fashion.

Grampa Simpson ended up lost in the woods while trying to get the morning paper (which is odd, since "The Old Man and the Lisa" revealed that the retirement home no longer has newspapers as the news angries up the elderly residents' blood and there's a sign outside the home that reads, "Thank you for not discussing the outside world.") and is found again days later, trying to get his dentures back from a turtle (without success).

When Homer gets his reflexes tested. It takes him two hours for his knee to respond.

Homer is unable to correctly recall a movie's title in spite of having repeatedly used the title's only word while describing the plot.

Homer:I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."

Et Tu, Brute?: Homer is upset that even Marge would buy and wear a "Homer is a Dope" shirt. He changes his mind upon seeing how good the job of sewing "Dope" on the shirt was.

Fake Cross Over: With The X-Files. Unlike the debacle that happened with The Critic, Matt Groening's name was in the credits and he actually was cool with having The X-Files cross over to his show, since it wasn't a 20-minute advertisement for the show. Whether or not this episode can be considered canon to The X-Files (albeit taking place much earlier in its timeline) depends on how you interpret a line by Mulder a year earlier, describing a character played by the legendarily odd-looking Michael Berryman as "Homer Simpson's evil twin."

Have a Gay Old Time: In the opening, Mr. Burns casually asks Smithers if he has any gay plans for the night, meaning light-hearted and fancy-free.

Lisa: Dad, according to Junior Skeptic Magazine, the chances are 175 million to one of another form of life actually coming in contact with ours. Homer: So? Lisa: It's just that the people who claim they've seen aliens are always pathetic low-lifes with boring jobs. Oh, and you, Dad.(laughs nervously)

Left the Background Music On: Homer, pretty scared and paranoid, hears the theme from Psycho. It turns out it's actually played by Springfield Philharmonic traveling by bus.

Lie Detector: Which Homer causes to explode after claiming to understand Scully's explanation of how it works.

Low-Speed Chase: This happens when Abe tries to catch the turtle that took his teeth. (It is currently the page image).

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Not in the actual episode, but the original script ended with the alien's true identity unrevealed, implying Homer really did encounter one.

Mundane Ghost Story: Bart's "ghost story" about how much college will cost for Maggie (which freaks Homer out). In a deleted scene, the original "ghost story" was about the ingredients to an Oscar Meyer weiner (which still freaks out Homer).

Noodle Incident: Scully says this is the worst assignment they've ever had, to which Mulder asks if it's really worse than that time with the flesh-eating virus.

Leonard Nimoy's role in the episode references his old hosting gig on the late-1970s/early 1980s supernatural documentary series In Search of..., counting as Actor Allusion.

On the line-up of aliens, there is Alf, Marvin The Martian, Chewbaccanote who also appears at the end and Gort (according to the DVD commentary, all of the characters were used without permission from their creators [with the exception of Kang/Kodos, since that's property of FOX and Matt Groening], making it "the most illegal shot in animation." In fact, the worst the staff received was a call from the voice of Alf, who wasn't brought in to voice his character).

Sickly Green Glow: Mr. Burns's explanation for the glowing, after he was revealed to be the "alien", is that "a lifetime of working in a nuclear power plant has given me a healthy green glow...and left me as impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner."

Signs of Disrepair: An already frightened Homer sees a large billboard that says "DIE." He screams. Then the wind shifts, moving a tree branch and revealing that the word is "DIET." Homer screams louder and flees.

Spinning Clock Hands: When Scully performs tests on Homer, she does also the patellar reflex test. It takes one hour till Homer says "oh" and his knee moves a bit. The time is shown with three different shots of the clock.

Uranus Is Showing: Bart dresses up as an alien and yells, "I am the thing from Uranus!" the morning after Homer first sees the alien.

Take That: Milhouse plays a Waterworld video game, which costs 40 quarters ($10) to play, and after you deposit it, it only goes one move before you need another 40 quarters to play, in reference to the film's over-expensive budget and box-office failure.

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